So Bush is now open to considering a gas tax holiday. This is how bad policy gets made. Opportunistic politicians make opportunistic policy proposals, and when too few people lack the courage to oppose those proposals, then voila–bad policy. This is also why political jujitsu on these issues is a bad idea; they take on a life of their own. It appears as though Clinton is serious about the tax holiday, but if she weren’t and it came to a vote, she’d be forced to either support a bad policy or face the deadly flip-flop charge. Better to get it right initially and stay right.

Still worse, the president of the United States went on:

But, he said, he favored longer-term fixes, such as encouraging new oil production in the United States and the building of new refineries.

New refineries to refine what oil? New production where? Sufficient to offset declines elsewhere and handle growing demand in Asia? This is bullshit of the first order. What Bush is effectively saying is that he is unwilling to alter government policy in ways that might help the American consumer. He is, rather, content to allow supply and demand conditions to continue on as they have, thereby increasing fuel costs for consumers with few alternatives (but generating some nice profits for oil companies).